


Salvage

by leomona



Series: Tales From The Commonwealth [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 22:51:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14388771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leomona/pseuds/leomona
Summary: One of the many problems with trying to make a living as a Commonwealth scavenger is that sometimes, someone else got there first.





	Salvage

“ _Forty-three_?” Johanna said incredulously. “Do you have any idea what I went through to _get_ all of this? I spent _two hours_ hiding under a car after some mutie with a mini-nuke wandered by with his buddies and refused to leave again!”

“You don't like what I'm paying? Tell someone who cares, scavver,” Myrna snapped, then pointed at the slate board hung prominently behind the shop counter. “Biometric scanners, military-grade circuit boards, copper, gold. You want more caps, bring me what my customers are looking for. Until then, either take the deal or get this crap out of my way.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Johanna said, nearly a growl, and swept the little pile of caps into her bag, not bothering to count them. _It's going to cost me more than that to restock my ammo,_ she seethed as she stalked away, skirting around the edge of the late afternoon crowd slowly filling up the seats at the noodle bar. A group of young men and women – upper stands, by the looks of them, not to mention by the looks they were giving everyone around them – came swaggering down the middle of the street, shouldering aside anyone in their way; she skirted around _them_ , too, ducking down a tiny alley between the shops, lit by a flickering pink light.

“ _Psst_. Hey, you!”

Johanna stopped, tensely scanning the area before eyeing a pile of discarded trash. “What?” she asked experimentally.

The trash-pile shifted to reveal a pair of eyes in an incredibly dirty face. “You got any jet? I'm good for it, I  _swear_ .”

Johanna rolled her eyes, continuing on down the dingy passageway without replying. The neon sign farther down continued its erratic flickering and she clenched her teeth, a headache starting to throb in her temples.  _Next pair of sunglasses I find, I'm keeping_ , she decided as she reached the light's source, knocking briefly on the door underneath the pink heart before letting herself inside.

The woman seated at the desk just inside looked up as she came in, startled look shifting to something pleasantly professional. “Oh,” Ellie said. “Hello. Johanna, wasn't it? I wasn't expecting you back so soon.”

Johanna shrugged. “Got lucky on one of the people Valentine asked me to keep an eye out for. I thought I might as well let you know, since I was in the area,” she said.  _And hopefully get paid for it, too._ “Turns out that Harry Thompson's alive, well, and thoroughly un-kidnapped. Unless the Institute's replaced him in order to have him cheat on his wife, anyway.”

“She wouldn't be the first to try and convince herself that's what happened,” Ellie sighed. “Thanks for letting us know. Where'd you find him? And – no offence, but you wouldn't happen to have any proof of what you found, would you? I know Lisa vouched for you, but when we're starting to work with someone new...” She trails off.

“What did you expect me to do, drag him back at gunpoint?” Johanna asked caustically. “Not really my style. Last I saw him, he was trying to chat up Magnolia at the Third Rail, over in Goodneighbor. You want to confirm, check with her; even if he's gone now, she was putting way too much effort into ignoring him to not remember. Listen, not to be rude, but about my payment...”

“I'm afraid for the first few cases you help with, we really _do_ have to either confirm ourselves, or wait for someone else to corroborate – uh, back up what you told us,” Ellie said apologetically.

“I know what corroborate means,” Johanna snapped, then closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath and counting to five before opening them again. “So how long is _that_ going to take?” she asked, striving for a neutral tone.

“Unfortunately, Detective Valentine's helping General Prescott with something up north right now, and I'm not sure when to expect him back,” Ellie replied, eyeing Johanna a bit warily by then. “I have to stay and look after the office, myself. But I'll be sure to let him know as soon as I see him; it shouldn't be long at all, after that. And of course, one of our other freelancers could come by any day. Goodneighbor's a popular place, after all. Check back in a week, maybe?”

“Fine,” Johanna sighed, fed up but not exactly seeing much point in arguing further. _Especially when she's already getting nervous; don't want to lose this as a source of jobs altogether. They have to pay me_ eventually _, right?_ “I'll come by next time I'm in Diamond City, then. You got anything else for me, long as I'm here?”

“Let's see,” Ellie mused as she sifted through the files on the desk before her. “Cases are coming in a little slowly these days. There are less people going missing now that the roads are starting to see some regular Minutemen patrols, after all. Which is a good thing, of course,” she added quickly. “But it _does_ mean – oh, I suppose there's always this one, if you're interested. A family whose daughter ran off to join the Brotherhood and then disappeared. Detective Valentine confirmed that the girl – Olivia – made it safely to the Brotherhood outpost in the Cambridge police station. They told her she'd have to prove her worth before anyone would sponsor her to join, and sent her off to retrieve some sort of unspecified technology.”

“Let me guess,” Johanna said. “She didn't come back.”

Ellie nodded. “That was almost a month ago, now, and the Brotherhood has since sent one of their own people – for the tech, not the girl,” she added, with a look of disgust. “No sign of Olivia, according to them, and after this long, the trail's probably gone cold, assuming there ever  _was_ one. But they may not have been looking too hard, and the location's far enough out of the way that it may not have been picked over in the meantime. If you want to take a look, I'm sure Detective Valentine would appreciate it. And if you  _do_ find anything, I'm sure that appreciation will take a more... spendable form.”

“Whereabouts would I be going?” Johanna asked, considering. _Even if – when – the girl's a bust, out of the way could mean good scavenging. Might be worth a look, if it's somewhere not too risky._

“Here,” Ellie said, paging through the file and pulling out a map at the back. She unfolded it, turning it upside-down for Johanna to see, and pointed. “If you follow the road north out of Cambridge and veer northwest at the overpass before the Corvega factory, it's no more than an hour's walk from there. You're looking for a little house in the woods with a trapdoor leading to a basement. Here's a description of Olivia, too.” She passed over a sheet of paper.

“The Brotherhood wanted tech out of some old basement in the woods?” Johanna asked sceptically.

Ellie shrugged. “So they said, anyway. You know what the Brotherhood are like; Detective Valentine was lucky to get even _that_ much out of them.”

_Yeah, assuming they weren't just trying to send him off to get him killed,_ Johanna thought, but simply replied, “Well, maybe I'll take a look, if I'm up that way anytime soon. Don't forget to tell Valentine what I found out about Thompson.”

“Will do,” Ellie agreed. “And good luck in your travels.”

“I'd say _you too_ , but apparently you don't ever go anywhere,” Johanna said dryly, taking her leave.

 

 

…......

 

 

_Ghouls. It just_ had  _to be ghouls,_ Johanna thought, repressing a shudder as she lowered her scoped pistol. She tucked it back inside her waistband and scanned the nearby trees, hoping to see one sturdy enough to climb.  _Can't hit me if you can't reach me._ But it was all scrubby little pines in this part of the Commonwealth, branches all too high or too thin for her purposes; reluctantly, she discarded her nascent plan in favour of her combat shotgun and stood up, moving into plain view. As the first ghoul gave a snarl and charged, she grinned.  _You want me, you creepy bastards? Here I am._

“Now, I _am,_ admittedly, something of a badass,” Johanna informed the eight fresh ghoul corpses, a few minutes later. “But I'd have sworn I only killed six of you, which my ammo situation would seem to corroborate. So who was it that took out the rest of you and are they still nearby?” She pushed one of the bodies over with the toe of her boot, raising an eyebrow at the scorch marks on their chest. _Brotherhood? But why come back here? And where could they have gone? I'd have noticed a vertibird overhead._ She eyed where the rug in the middle of the floor had been thrown back to show a trapdoor, hinges gleaming, then gave a shrug and lifted the door open carefully, bypassing the short ladder and dropping down directly to land in an easy crouch.

As she padded along the twisty dirt passage – illuminated by sporadic light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, and wasn't that interesting that they both still worked and had power? - Johanna kept her shotgun ready, not liking how little visibility the tight corners afforded her. She came to a fork in the passage; a faint clinking noise, as of metal on stone, reached her there, but either the two tunnels joined up again, or something about the place was making the sound echo too much to tell which way it was coming from. She sighed softly to herself, then chose the left tunnel for no particular reason.

_I think I've cracked the case of the disappearing idiot,_ Johanna mused as she went along, peering briefly into little rooms – storage closets, really – that she passed. The clinking noise grew steadily louder all the while, no obvious source yet forthcoming.  _Lost in a pointless, inexplicable maze of underground tunnels and starved to death, only to be found by someone equally stupid who joined her in her fate not long after. I wonder if Ellie will send Valentine to look for me if I don't make it back, or -_

“Hostile sensor reading detected,” a voice droned from off to the side and Johanna let out a yell, swinging her shotgun around as a synth stepped out from behind the door in a room she'd thought was clear. After a bare half-second to take in the details – smooth plastic face, light armor, laser rifle in its mechanical hands that was in the process of lifting to aim at her – she fired twice, point-blank into its chest and face.

“Fucking _fuck_!” Johanna panted, trembling in reaction and trying to bring her racing heart under control as she peered in to check the room _properly,_ then backed into a corner to wait for anyone else coming to investigate, shotgun raised and face grim. A minute passed, then two and three, and finally she stepped cautiously out into the passageway – the now utterly _silent_ passageway – once more. She hesitated as she glanced between the way she came and the way forward, then, already cursing herself, continued on.

No more than twenty paces on, the tunnel ended, widening out into a small, circular room lined with shelves holding various bits of machinery. As Johanna entered, eyes narrowed with both suspicion and concentration, she caught a flash of movement from the corner of her eye; her shotgun swung round again to meet the threat and she only barely stopped herself from firing at the sight of the man in the white and orange jumpsuit, cowering on the floor between two shelves. His head was hidden behind his arms, but he peeked out from between them; as their gazes met, he flinched, huddling further in on himself.

Johanna stared at him for a moment, then gave an exasperated sigh and lowered her weapon – not completely, but enough that she was hopefully communicating _ready if you try anything_ rather than _about to blow your head off._ “How many of you are there?” she asked tersely.

“Please,” the man whimpered, muffled by his arms. “Don't shoot me.”

“I don't shoot unarmed people without a really good reason,” Johanna said dryly. “Like, say, them not answering my questions.”

Another flinch. “I – only me,” the man replied.

“Lying to me counts as a good reason, too,” Johanna remarked, conversational, as she fished a couple of shells out of her pocket and started reloading her gun. “I already killed one guard; try again.”

“You – you did?” The man slowly lowered his arms, his expression a mixture of fear and uncertainty, as well as a little – was that _hope_ underneath? “I heard the shot, but I didn't know – what I said was not a lie,” the man said, quailing a little beneath Johanna's unimpressed look but nevertheless forging ahead. “I thought you were asking about the salvage team, not the guard.”

“How many people or machines with _weapons_ ,” Johanna said, exasperated.

“None,” the man replied, shaking his head. “There were another two, but those... creatures in the house attacked and fatally injured the other workers.” He nodded towards the back of the room and the two blanket-draped mounds that, yes, were approximately person-sized and shaped. “Someone will be coming to retrieve me before much longer,” he added, eyeing Johanna's shotgun. “If I've been taken elsewhere or - harmed, they'll seek the one responsible.”

_Yeah, and doesn't being here when a Courser on the hunt shows up just sound like the best idea ever? Leave, Johanna; turn around and leave._

“How long ago was that?” Johanna asked instead.

“I am unsure,” the man replied. “Two days? Three?” He hesitated, then said carefully, “If I might... trouble you for a drink of water...?”

Johanna's lips thinned and she shook her head; as the man slumped, she realised he'd interpreted her gesture of frustration as refusal. “Here,” she said, and tossed him her canteen when he looked up. He unscrewed the cap with shaking hands, drinking greedily before obviously forcing himself to stop and offer the canteen back; Johanna shook her head, watching as he drank again.

“Look,” Johanna said with a sigh, only taking back the canteen once his thirst seemed fully slaked. “You can't stay here and wait on – _whoever_ to come get you. Ghouls aren't going to figure out how to let themselves in, but that doesn't really matter if you die of thirst instead.”

“Someone will come for me,” the man repeated. “I must be here when they do.”

“ _When_?” Johanna snapped. “Because if it's more than a few days, you are _dead_ ; do you not _get_ that? Do they even know to _look_? How long will it take for them to figure out something's gone wrong?” The man hesitated, wavering, and she pressed her advantage. “You can wait for them just as easily somewhere safer. Somewhere with food and water, even; there's a settlement no more than two hours away. Just... leave a note saying where you're going and why, so there's no... trouble finding you.” _Trouble reclaiming you._

“I don't -” The man hesitated again, eyes darting around the room as if looking for answers. “I'm not sure if – how would I even find this settlement? Or defend myself along the way?”

Johanna tramped ruthlessly down on her little thrill of triumph, precipitous thing that it was. “I've got no interest in getting mixed up with Institute business,” she said baldly. “But I can manage taking you  _that_ far, at least. Since I'm heading that way, anyway. As for defending yourself, there's a laser rifle going free, back the way I came.”

The man's gaze snapped to hers, the fear that had slowly been receding springing back to life. “You know what we – what  _I_ -”

“Yeah, the mechanical man on guard was a bit of a giveaway,” Johanna replied. “Look, I don't give a fuck either way that you're a synth, okay? If you want to go to that settlement, it's probably a good idea if we get you some different clothes and make up an actual name for you, but -”

“Eric,” the man interrupted, his tone suddenly – uncharacteristically – firm.

“What?” Johanna asked, thrown.

“My name,” Eric repeated. “It's Eric.”

After a moment, J8-41 smiled. “Okay,” she agreed, and offered him a hand up. “Eric it is. You ready to get going, Eric?”

Eric clasped her hand and stood. “Yes,” he said steadily.

 


End file.
